“The body is the zero point of the world, the place where paths and spaces cross. The body itself is nowhere.”
Michel Foucault – Le corps est ailleurs de Le corps utopique.

“In the exhibition VERHANDLUNGSMASSE (Matter of Negotiation) I am addressing human vulnerability, the human need for protection and security, but also the often brutal reality that is dominated by aggression, fear, violence and pain. I am interested in the formations and deformations of the body, which becomes the site of historical inscriptions. He is exposed to metamorphoses that are triggered by personal, social and political processes. The innermost is turned inside out. I am looking for the connection of the mental level, which correlates with the psychic space and thus forms a new reality, similar to an artificial deep sleep”
Maike Freess

Maike Freess proved over and over to undoubtedly be a master of drawing. Her virtuous drawing technique is not only rich in an inexhaustible source of imagination but spreads an innate magnetic force, almost brutal, unfailingly catapulting the viewer into her universe.
Able to create dramatic volumes by breaking the intensity of her fine white lines on black paper, with razor-sharp white cuts and controlled spreads of colors, Maike Freess gives the paper limitless possibilities, elevating it from being a poor material to an enhancer of emotions, a magical place where her deconstructed reality gets alive.

In her drawing process, the subjects start transforming, as something hidden and repressed would be revealed, something secretly desired, mixing up fiction and reality. Maike Freess’s hand leads the pencil, methodically and clearly, but her drawing in the last years talks more and more abstractly. She works at the border of surrealism because her work gives the feeling to be generated by a sort of poetic vision. That’s because behind her figures hides a deep psychological work like a rip in the subconscious, where memory and awareness, subjective and universal blend into one.

In her latest series of works, Maike Freess assigns the body with its imperfect nature, limited and unstable, and its relationship with the psyche, as the central point of her research. The ancient Romans used to say: “Mens Sana In Corpore Sano” to describe the unbreakable bond between the human’s mechanical shell, the body, and their fluid transcendent expansion, the mind. The inevitable imperfection of the body gives way to the psyche in all its aspects, spiritual, humoral, and intellectual, as much as the affections of the psyche influence the body. Ancient Uroboro of the human condition. In her work, Maike Freess by defragmenting the body’s shapes focuses on the birth of the new reality, which she defines as similar to an artificial memoir, born out of the unavoidable bond between this newly-shaped “Corpore” with the good old tricky “Mens”.

The cuts in her work are representative of the spotted mind, the conscious or unconscious gaps in memory and psyche, that beyond rationality generate discomfort, denial, and mis/non-understanding. In the exhibition set-up, these wounds cross the limited borders of the art piece/individual/body expanding across the walls and the floor, as to underline their unexpected and disorienting effect also on the surroundings and the others. Furthermore, every individual is exposed as well to social and political processes, that will as well have psychological repercussions, contributing to the formations and deformations of the body, which is now taken in regard by the artist as the site of historical inscriptions. Maike Freess ponders deeply and often on existential dilemmas, wondering what makes a human be and feels like a human, and how the influence of the mind, personal history, surroundings, and political contest determine feelings and actions. What becomes of humanity when it gets objectified, becoming a bargaining chip? Matter of Negotiation.

Available Artworks